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If you’re a social media community manager, than you most likely have heard about the 80/20 rule. It’s a hard rule to follow, let alone get it right. Let me explain first what it is, then how to accomplish it.

Really, it’s quite simple. All of the content pushed out on your Facebook fan page should fall into roughly two categories:

1. Content directly related to your brand and product and is self-promotional.

The indirect content pushes are a bit different, mostly because it’s such a wide category. These could be anything from:

Current national or local events

Holidays

Funny pictures

Pop culture

Quotes

Let me give you some examples of indirect content pushes:

For most marketers and social media community managers, it’s easy to get direct product pushes right. We’re good at that! It’s the indirect ones that get us. I can’t emphasize enough though how important they are. They should make up 80% of your content. Why? Because they are the status updates upon which you build your community. They bring the social into “social media”. Time and again they get the most comments, likes and shares. They drive engagement and help you relate to your fans, even if your product is beeswax.

So try it out! Tomorrow, post a status update on your fan page that is completely indirect. Have it be about the upcoming holidays, but don’t sell anything. See who’s traveling the farthest for Thanksgiving or who likes dark turkey meat over white. While some marketers think this is trival and not worthwhile (I know, because I’ve practically had to fight some people to get them to try this type of content), I can promise you that it will build your community and be some of the highest engagement posts yet.

Don’t believe me? Try it for a week. Let the data speak for itself. Then respond in the comments with your findings.